Third Midweek Advent Sermon 12/14/11

Third Midweek Advent Date: 12/14/11 Text: Isaiah 40:1-11 Title: O Come, O Come, Emmanuel Today, as we have done for the past few Wednesdays we are going to continue to looking at our Advent text Isaiah 40:1-11. We know that the prophet Isaiah was prophesying about God bringing back the people of Israel from Babylonia long before they were even forcibly taken to Babylonia. Isaiah is prophesying that God was not only going to return them to their beloved country, but he was going to bless them with double the amount of grace than the evil they had committed that had led to their captivity in Babylonia. Imagine the comfort they must have felt when they read the words of God that were spoken to them even before most, if not all of them were born. Listen to God’s words in verse 6 through 8, as Isaiah hears another voice speak to him. “6 A voice says, "Cry!" And I said, "What shall I cry?" All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field. 7 The grass withers, the flower fades when the breath of the LORD blows on it; surely the people are grass. 8 The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” It’s a strange message. Isaiah is told to tell the people and thus us since God’s Word is timeless that we are in reality unreliable and that we will fail while God’s promise is forever and infallible. A good example of this was recorded for us in chapter 39 just before the verses we are studying this Advent. “Then Isaiah said to Hezekiah, (after he showed off the treasure of the nation to the people who would come take it all away later hauling treasure and people off to Babylonia) "Hear the word of the LORD of hosts: 6 Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the LORD. 7 And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon." 8 Then said Hezekiah to Isaiah, "The word of the LORD that you have spoken is good." For he thought, "There will be peace and security in my days." King Hezekiah just like many of those in authority today did not care about what would happen in the future just as long as there was peace and security during his lifetime even if it meant that his sons were going to made into eunuchs because he wanted to show off his wealth. While sometimes we think our governing officials are a lot like King Hezekiah in that all they want to do is make sure they are reelected, we are not much different. As long as our life is good quite often we don’t worry about the future life of others much less do anything about it. Most of us are just like the flowers of the field. We blossom only under ideal conditions, not under the blasts of real life. We moan and groan about how unfair life is when troubles hit us, but very seldom do we do anything to correct it, especially if it is others who are having troubles. Too many Christians sit in self-righteousness looking down their nose on those who are suffering while worshiping their idols of self-indulgence. We are so inconsistent in our attitudes as we proclaim our love for Jesus and yet do not do, as he told us to do. We too, just like the Israelites, need to be brought to repentance and I don’t have any doubt that that is what God is now doing; both as a nation and individually. As people of God grafted into spiritual Israel by Jesus’ death and resurrection we are in captivity. We are surrounded by corruption and false gods. We, as active Christians are made fun of and pressured to not be judgmental concerning life styles and the wrongness of abortion even when God’s Word speaks against those things. We are told that God’s Word does not speak to the problems of society today, for the people that wrote the books of the Bible were only trying to explain how things worked that they could not explain. Those who are not Christian consider us to be fools for clinging to the un-provable outdated beliefs in God’s Word. When we see how far we have fallen and how broken the world is, it explains why disappointment pervades our experience. As we see more and more of life, we are confronted with disappointment so persistently and so convincingly, hope starts to look just plain stupid. We become disappointed in our ideals, disappointed in our romance, disappointed in our career, disappointed in the people we trust, and last, but certainly not least disappointed in ourselves. That, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ is the life the majority of us live in whether we want to admit it or not. And because of that we need to hear just like the Israelites in Babylonia needed to hear God’s Word of comfort. We need to hear that we can trust in God, so that our hope in the future is a sure hope, for his words will not fade away, as everything else will. We need to truly believe that no human power or condition can stop God from doing what he is going to do. Human failure is costly and can be painful and discouraging, but it’s not the end of our happiness, for God’s promise of salvation is final and sure. He is committed to us and our salvation. And in that certainty our hopes come to rest. The word of our God will stand forever. And what is that Word of God? It is, as Saint John writes in John 1:1-5, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made.4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men.5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” continuing in verse 14, “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” In Bethlehem the Word took on flesh and blood. He lived away from the Father’s house for 33 years, as he lived a life we cannot live; perfectly trusting the Father’s promise that he would care for him. Then on that day when those of the world thought they were rid of him he cried out, “It is finished.” and it was finished. The world heard and still hears defeat. We though hear victory, for in that cry Jesus made peace between us and God fulfilling the angels proclamation, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among those with whom he is pleased!" That is our sure hope. That is our comfort. That is our glory. Amen

Third Sunday in Advent 12/11/11

Third Sunday in Advent 12/11/11 Text: Hebrews 1:1-12 Title: Why not an Angel? A long time ago a boy who is now a grown man asked his pastor in Confirmation class why God did not just send an angel to save us instead of coming himself. Needless to say that question stirred up the class and upset the pastor. He could not remember anyone ever asking that question before. He and everyone he knew just accepted that God had become human when Jesus was born. The pastor knew that that answer would not fly with this young boy because he questioned almost everything he said. How he remembered when he had told the class that God in his Holy Word said you cannot serve two masters at the same time. The young fella had shot his hand up in the air almost before the pastor had finished reading the text. “Why.” He said. “Why cannot you serve two masters?” He remembered after he told the young boy, “Because God said so.” what had happened. The whole class fell apart that day because the boy was not satisfied with that answer. Here he goes again, the pastor thought with an inward groan. This is a going to be a long class. The pastor tried to answer the question with his usual answer, “Because God said so.” but it did not work. He finally had to tell the boy that he would meet with him later after he had time to see why it had to be God that had to become incarnate, that is become human and not an angel. I bet you never thought of that question, “Why didn’t God the Father send an angel instead of his Son to die for us?” Why did God have to come in person to be one of us, is a question that we really should ask. We don’t ask it because we doubt God’s Word, but because in finding the answer we can better appreciate God’s plan of salvation. Mary, the mother of Jesus asked that question when she replied to the angel who told her she was going to become pregnant, “How will this be, since I am a virgin?” In that question the whole matter of Jesus’ identity is raised. Who is he; God, man, or some kind of combination of God and man? Joseph also was really asking the same question when he found out that Mary was pregnant and he knew the baby was not his. Before the angel told him that the baby in her womb had come from the Holy Spirit he was going to divorce her. How could this be he asked. People were always questioning who Jesus was from his childhood to his death and resurrection. Who was he? They, including his disciples, could not accept that God himself had become Incarnate; that is human. “After all was not Joseph his father?” they asked. Nothing has changed. It still goes on today. People still do not accept Jesus, even many of those who consider themselves Christian, as God Incarnate. They say he, if they even go this far, is the Son of God, but not God or that he is just a good man, a righteous man who lived a long time ago and whose lifestyle we should mimic, but God in the flesh. No way! That, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ is why I am doing this sermon series and Bible study on God’s Incarnation. Now we know, or at least we should know that Jesus is God in the flesh. But back to the question the young boy was really asking that day. Could God have accomplished the same redemptive act by sending an angel to become a human? According to Scripture there are three reasons why having an angel do what Jesus did would not work in God’s plan of salvation. First of all God’s angels were created. They did not always exist, as the Triune God does. Second, after the original fall when the angels sinned against God, angels can no longer sin, so an angel cannot take our place because they cannot be tempted. Last, but not least angels do not die, and as we know, for God’s plan to work a sinless human being had to die. Well, if an angel cannot do what God needed to be done to save his human creation what about another human? We all know people who might qualify; the saints of the world that have lived wonderful lives doing God’s work. Why wouldn’t they work? That one is pretty easy to answer, for there is no human being that has lived, except for Jesus that is perfect, that would qualify, for any sin no matter how seemingly insignificant in any form or fashion condemns a person. A human being just will not qualify. An angel does not qualify. A human descendent of Adam and Eve does not qualify. It simply has to be someone as perfect as God who would keep the Law perfectly, yet someone who could also become human and be able to suffer and die. That is a dilemma that only God can solve. No one else or any other plan would work. He was the only one who had the qualification to do what God needed done to save his human creation from his judgment. He had to come himself; God Incarnate. Jesus did not merely look like a human or pretend to be human, or half human, as some still teach today. Jesus was fully human precisely like us. When God came to be one us he voluntarily took on what we must face, temptation, and death. Listen to what God tells us about himself in Hebrews 2:14-18, “14 Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, 15 and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. 16 For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham. 17 Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. 18 For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.” God through the inspired writings of the writer to the Hebrew Christians is telling them and us in this text that since all humans have their origin from God Jesus is like them because the God-man Jesus origins are from God also. He did not become human to help angels but to help his brothers and sisters with whom he shares his humanness. The difference being that while death shows the reality of Satan’s power, Jesus’ death destroyed Satan’s power over us. Death for God’s children is a doorway to the rest of life with God; freedom from Satan and all the ills of this life. Death is not something that we should fear as children of God. Jesus God Incarnate in one act on the cross did what no sacrifice, no matter how many times it was done could not do; appease God. And that my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, is Good News. Amen.